The line comes from the United States presidential debate on 10 September 2024, when Donald Trump, debating Kamala Harris, claimed that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating residents' pets. The remark was immediately fact-checked and widely mocked, and clips spread across TikTok, X and YouTube within hours, often remixed with music, pet footage and reaction shots. It endured because the phrasing was so distinctive and instantly recognisable, turning a serious political moment into a shorthand joke about unbelievable claims, exaggeration and internet-fuelled political satire.